


The Weight of the Night

by ChatoyantPenumbra



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark Signer Arc, Dark Signer Yusei, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Past Relationship(s), commission
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-26 19:13:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20394754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChatoyantPenumbra/pseuds/ChatoyantPenumbra
Summary: In his rematch with Kyousuke Kiryu, Yusei loses the duel. But with an undying spirit such as Yusei's, he refuses to resign himself to the grave—and he takes the only option he has left to salvage the past.





	The Weight of the Night

**Author's Note:**

> This is a commission for @katsuyaxrebd on twitter. Enjoy my friend, and thank you for the commission!

A falling star.

A falling star is all he is as he descends out of the sky, out of the clouds, out of the sunlight and all that is warm.

A falling star is all he is as he crashes hard into the earth, with metal warping and shrapnel exploding with the force of the fall. A shining red smolders over into charred bike parts, and a new shining red blooms over the concrete, spreading, spreading, spreading.

Yusei is a star that has fallen, an angel with his wings clipped. Pain envelops his body, pulsing louder and with increasing anguish until his lungs fill and he can’t breathe. 

He can’t move his head. His neck is completely compromised, his body having lost the ability to contract. It’s like his muscles have fallen out of touch with his brain as much as he had fallen out of touch with the man currently standing over him. 

Blood ruptures from his mouth in a cough so weak and immobilized that he suffocates on it. A head of silver hair leans down to him and says something that he can’t quite hear, can’t quite understand. He remembers a short conversation, then darkness smothers his being in cold heaviness.

A star has fallen, and the depiction of the Earthbound God Ccapac Apu fades from the sky. For the first time since Zero Reverse, Neo Domino and Satellite shake as one.

* * *

Yusei’s friends search for him for weeks. None of them want to accept the reality of what they saw from afar when the glow of purple carved seemingly into the earth disappeared and marked the end of the fated duel between Kiryu, the controller of a demon, and Yusei, Satellite’s shooting star. No one could have expected the outcome—Yusei had never lost except to Jack years ago, because the heart that the man possessed could seemingly outshine the darkness in every person he met. 

Not this time, Jack thinks, with disgust. But it isn’t disgust for Yusei’s loss; instead it’s for Kiryu’s triumph. Something simmers angrily inside of Atlas, like a volcano, bubbling up slowly and foretelling the inevitable future of a fiery and hellish death for all in his way. He doesn’t want to accept what’s happened to his best friend either, but as the days slide by, faster than he can stop them, he can’t help but slowly start to accept what he knows has happened to Yusei. The Signers sit together now, around a table at the PSMB headquarters. It’s deathly quiet aside for Mikage pouring tea for them now that they’ve gathered again. It’s the fourth or fifth time now. Still, no one seems to have any ideas as to where to look for Yusei.

The wrath in Jack’s heart twists. He knows what’s happened: Kiryu’s killed him, and he’s taken his body somewhere to bury him. After all, is it even humanly possible to survive after having lost as much blood that had soaked into the ground where the Yusei-Go lay wrecked and tipped on its side?

“Does anyone have any leads?” Mikage asks again, somberly. 

It seems like the thousandth time Jack has heard that line since Yusei has gone missing. He slams his fists on the table in outrage of his own helplessness and storms out of the room. 

The group is that much more quiet afterwards. 

* * *

The sound of a painful groan fills the hollow room, echoing off the tall walls and ceiling and engulfing the space entirely with a feeling of desolation.

Yusei’s head throbs when he rises from the concrete he lies upon, his body aching something terrible and feeling locked up at every joint as if rigor mortis has taken him captive. The room is entirely dark, save for just a few candles upon a wooden table near the center, but it’s no comfort. The shadows seem alive in this place.

Yusei struggles to his feet, and it’s only then that he realizes his ordinary clothes no longer adorn him. Gone are his jacket, his gloves, his jeans, and tank; in their place are makeshift robes, and they’re heavy, heavier than anything Yusei ever remembers wearing before. It does his body no favors as he limps to the table where the candles are, settling himself upon the end of the bench that lines both sides.

It’s deathly quiet. Nothing but the shadows on the high walls stir. Fudo sits and tries to stretch out the muscles that are cramped unlike ever before.

“Three days.”

Yusei jumps at the sound, and his head whips in the direction of its origin. Kiryu is standing there, his arms folded, until he emerges from the darkness of the next room. His eyes catch the light of the candles in a haunting glint, and they speak of hidden anger, betrayal. Yusei has never been one to be afraid of the dark, but in that moment, he can’t say he isn’t.

“Three days is how long you’ve been sleeping. Do you feel any better now that you’ve got your beauty rest?” Kiryu taunts, continuing to draw closer until he’s only an arm’s length away. 

Yusei’s brows settle hard against his eyes. “You beat me—I don’t understand, I thought I should have died. You told me the duel would take my soul.”

“Why are you so sure it didn’t?”

That hits him like a cold bat to the face. Yusei’s eyes immediately flicker down to his arm, covered in the robes that engulf his body in shadow, and he tugs up the loose-fitting sleeve. His body freezes over like he’s been dunked in a vat of dry ice when he finds the Mark of the Dragon missing from his skin, and no matter how much he tries to call on it, it won’t respond. In its place is the shape of another animal, in similar Inca style.

He can’t feel any of the other Signers anymore, either, and their absence fills him with a feeling of solitary worse than it ever was in Satellite.

“You really don’t remember what happened right before you died, do you?” Kiryu erupts into laughter that reminds Yusei of a hyena, until he too collapses into a seat on the opposite bench. “I’ve heard of that happening. Dark Signers forgetting what their terms of resurrection were even after revival.”

“_ Dark Signer, _ what the hell do you mean?”

The hall fills with the uproar of Kiryu’s laughter, and it further shakes Yusei to his core. He feels sick, and it’s then that he hears a voice echo from inside of him, and Kiryu takes no notice. The shape on his arm glows a disturbing purple where it’s always been fiery crimson.

** _I gave you what you wanted. Another chance to right your wrongs. Isn’t that what you still desire?_ **

Yusei grows as still as stone. He’s not sure whether to speak out loud to it or do so within his own mind, but he opts for the latter as his eyes shift away from the face that stares so intently at him. 

_ You’re the spirit of the Earthbound God who brought me back to life? _

** _Yes. My name is Ch'aska Quyllur. I’ve given you my Mark of the Dog. But you dodge my question—is helping your friend still not what you want?_ **

It strikes Yusei then, like a flooding of water into his mind, and with it he can remember the request he made when the voice first entered his mind in his final moments. His eyes shift back to meet with Kiryu’s, in the state that he is now—twisted, scheming, manic, vengeful—and all the emotions from when he was alive come flooding back.

** _Your guilt is what called out to me. You did not want to die without amending the relationship you felt you had destroyed years ago. I sense that is still so._ **

“It _ is _ still so.” 

Kiryu’s eyes narrow when he speaks aloud, knowing the response wasn’t meant for him, and it’s then that his lips twist into the tormented cocktail of a grin and a disgusted grimace. 

“Is _ what _ still so? The fact that you chose to become one of us just so you could torment me for eternity? I couldn’t even get what I wanted when I killed you; _ you just _ ** _had_ ** _ to come _ ** _back!_ ** ” He stands now, slamming his palm on the table. “But I know you—you just didn’t have the guts to beat me again. You’re a coward, just like you always were! And you’re back to follow me around like some lost _ puppy! _ Even your Mark suits you now!”

“You’ve got it all wrong!” Yusei feels the turmoil swim in him, mixing with the negative energy of the magic that now sits in his soul. It makes him feel ill, even as he rises to his feet to stand eye-level with the man sneering at him. “You think I would let you slip away like ** _this_ ** when I was the person that made you this way?!”

The hall nearly quakes with the force of his conviction. For the first time, for just a moment, Kiryu isn’t sure what to say. Yusei snatches the opportunity for an upper hand faster than Kiryu can recover. 

“I would have followed you to the ends of the earth if you asked. I would have done anything to stop what happened, to save you. _ I don’t give a damn what it takes. _”

Kiryu spits venom, “But you _ didn’t! _”

Yusei jerks up his arm, revealing the Mark staining his skin. “I gave _ all I had! _”

Kiryu’s face loses vitriol, but he isn’t given the chance to recover it as Yusei sways, his hands grasping the end of the table to stabilize himself. Tanzanite eyes lose focus as the foreign power inside of him pushes him out, warring with his own will and emotional strife.

The voice within says something to him softly before consciousness slips from his grasp and he collapses to the ground. 

* * *

Sleep isn’t restful as a Dark Signer. And for Yusei, that’s even more so than just being disturbed by the restlessness of insomnia. Voices shake him in the void, whispering too low for him to make out what they’re saying, but too loud for him to be able to tune them out. It’s disturbing, agitated, relentless. Their voices grip him like they’re pinning him down with icy hands, binding him in the nothingness that is his mind.

It’s nothing at all like insomnia.

It strips his sanity, makes him feel psychologically unwell, like he’s about to start shaking with the force of how _ wrong _ it is.

The voices blend into another sound, the one of a dragon roaring in the distance. It’s Stardust—he can just tell. She’s fighting for him. 

Another voice engulfs all the rest, and it shakes him from his unrest, back into the conscious world. Yusei jolts up in the bed he finds himself in. It’s Kiryu’s voice that had shaken him from his slumber, if it could even be called that. 

Recognition seeps into Kiryu’s features as he takes in the sight of his old enemy, his old friend, and a grin splits his face from ear to ear.

“The _ un- _sleep is getting to you now, isn’t it?” He cackles as he turns away, flippantly flinging his hand in a shrugging gesture. “That’s one of the many pleasures of being a Dark Signer. You’re already dead, so sleep isn’t much more than an annoyance.”

Yusei doesn’t quite realize the look of horror still on his face until Kiryu glances back at him and snickers again. 

“You’ve been living for so long pampered in your world of light that you never knew how bad it would be for us in the darkness, right? That’s what’s written all over your pathetic face.” He turns, closing the distance and leaning in dangerously close. “That’s the darkness you left me in when you sold me out to Security. You felt it for one night, but I’ve been living in it for years. I wished the same kind of suffering I felt all this time on you, and maybe I got what I wanted after all.”

Yusei goes still as guilt grips him tighter. “I’m sorry, Kiryu. I’m going to fix my mistakes, and—”

“—and what? You can never rewrite the past. If we could, I would have kicked you back to the corner of Satellite you came from before you ever joined Team Satisfaction.”

Yusei tries to ignore how that stings. “I’ll find a way to make things right again. You can’t keep living like this.”

Kiryu’s sudden bark of laughter nearly makes Yusei jolt on the bed. “I’m not living at all, Yusei! _ I’m dead!! _” He grabs Fudo by the forearm, jerking him up from his seat with such force that Yusei loses his balance. Kiryu just sneers. “And you are too, now. Which means you’re stuck here with me until the Gods decide we’re of no use to them anymore.”

Yusei jerks his arm roughly back, sweeping a hand over the wrist he’s sure is bruised now. “You never used to act like this, Kiryu. You’re not yourself.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I just came into myself when you showed your true colors and sold me out.”

“I told them _ I did it _. I would never sell you out to anyone!”

“Even if that’s true, you still betrayed me when you turned your back on what we wanted! We were going to take over Satellite and free our home from their control and the three of you chickened out at the last second!”

Kiryu grips his robes this time, tugging them harshly as he begins to lead out the door. 

“I will show you what you have to do now, but this time you can’t back out. That Mark will make sure of it.”

Once they’re in the hall, Kiryu finally releases his tight grip, and Yusei’s pace comes into rhythm with his. Their footsteps echo off the mighty walls, and Fudo is left to wonder finally where exactly they are, now that Kyousuke’s teeth are no longer at his throat. The architecture is unlike anything he’s seen in Satellite, and he’s seen most of it. Perhaps it’s an old church building, just with all the pews torn out of the ground and the altar stripped completely clean of all religious symbols. It would make sense, given that all the windows above have been smashed in. They were probably once filled in with stained glass, Yusei thinks.

His tanzanite eyes shift to the back of Kiryu’s head now, and a flash of old memories invades his senses and fills him with a sense of longing for the past. He remembers how he had followed Kyousuke into so many meetings, so many battles for territory. The Kiryu of that time was so much different; surely passionate but never twisted by power and evil intentions.

The question has gone through his mind a thousand and one times, but Yusei still wonders how it got to be like this, how their bond that once possessed so much promise had gone corrupt so quickly. 

Still, Yusei says nothing as he ascends the spiral staircase to what he can only imagine is Kiryu’s destination. His skin prickles when he’s reminded of the chance that the other Dark Signers might be waiting for them wherever they’re headed. And though he may be a Dark Signer now, he knows his heart can never buy into their agenda, no matter what side to which his body—no, his _ very soul _—belongs. 

Still, Yusei says not a word even as they climb to the roof, after hundreds of stairs that would surely make any normal person’s thighs cramp horribly, and Kiryu shoves open the old door that squeaks on its hinges. A blast of cold air assaults them, but once the draft has passed Yusei sees something he hasn’t seen in what feels like forever.

The skyline of Satellite, in all of its dilapidated solemnity. 

He can’t remember the last time he was this high up. For so long, he hid away in the subway tunnels, only coming up to the surface when it was necessary. Being out in plain sight meant trouble with the authorities, especially when he was constantly working on an illegal D-Wheel.

“Don’t look so heartbroken, Yusei. You contributed to this place falling apart by siding with Security.”

“I never sided with them. You and I were always on the same side.”

Kiryu sneers, and his teeth glint the haunting moonlight that shines from above. This far out from the City, the stars shine all the brighter, but they hold no comfort to him now. 

“Take a look, Yusei. Back when we were all still a team, all I wanted was for this town to be ours. It would have been good for everyone, without any other gangs or Security to come in and fuck it all up.” Kiryu turns to the City behind them now, gesturing the kempt streets and buildings lined with lights. “But now there’s a new frontier. We don’t just want Satellite anymore, but Neo Domino too. And you’re going to help us get it. Just imagine it, Yusei. Everything as far as you can see and farther will be under our control, soon!”

Yusei nearly steps away from him as his voice grows louder, but he stands his ground despite the nausea that bubbles in the pit of his stomach. “We only ever united all of the territories here because we knew it was going to make Satellite more peaceful for everyone. It was never for control. I don’t want to control anything.”

“That’s too fucking bad, because you’re going to help _ whether you like it or not! _ I told you, that Mark doesn’t take no for an answer. If you won’t cooperate it’ll just take over and you won’t have a choice either way!”

“Is that what happened to you? You gave in to evil because you thought there wasn’t any other option, because you thought you would still have control if you just complied with what they wanted?”

“Now you’re getting it! Isn’t it so much better to be the one in power instead of letting something else do it for you? What are you then—a zombie, or ** _a dog on a leash?!_ **”

Kiryu’s hand closes against Yusei’s chest, bunching the robes in his fist as he shoves him back, but Fudo is quick to push back with an unexpected strength that knocks even Kyousuke off balance and staggering back.

“Coercion isn’t a decision. You’re being used as a pawn!”

“If I am, then _ so are you. _ You were a pawn to the Signers before you ever were to us. You think Jack and Crow wouldn’t betray you again like they betrayed me?” Kiryu spits on the concrete, eyes alive with hatred. “You think I wasn’t watching what was going on between you and Jack? He stole your first D-Wheel and your Stardust Dragon and took off to become the bullshit _ King of Riding Duels _ in Neo Domino! And what did you do?! You followed him like a lost fucking puppy because you couldn’t ever let it go. He knew you would follow him, and you did anyway. You played right into his hands, just like a **pawn!**”

The fist that connects with Kiryu’s face sends spit flying, and purple glows violently through their cloaks now in the shape of their respective Marks. It takes him a moment to recover, but when he does, a wicked smirk is back once he smears blood from the split in his lip as he attempts to wipe it. The Mark is already beginning to make Yusei’s emotions more volatile, not because of the strike, but because of the way Yusei’s eyes now shine with rage.

“Jack may have done some bad things before, but I can see that he’s learning from his mistakes. Just like you can!”

“I don’t regret anything I did. Just like I don’t regret anything now!”

Kiryu swings back with a powerful right hook using the force of his entire body, and it knocks Yusei flat onto his back with a loud grunt of pain. Kiryu climbs on top of him then, punching him again with his left fist for good measure. Yusei’s teeth are instantly bloodied. 

“Is that why you came back to me too, because you want me to treat you like a pawn? You want me to treat you like I used to?” Kiryu shoves aside Yusei’s cloak, yanking the clothing away from his chest and leaving it exposed. His calloused hand drags down Yusei’s bare torso, and the confusion in Yusei’s eyes has never looked clearer, even as he struggles to get out from under Kiryu. “To touch you like I used to—”

Yusei struggles more, like he’s about to prepare himself to deliver another punch. Kiryu’s hand grips Fudo’s dominant right, shoving it against the rooftop. He leans in now, pressing his lips to Yusei’s cheek and hissing, “—to _ fuck _ you like I used to?”

“_ Get the hell off me! _”

Yusei’s free hand gives a savage tug against his silver hair, and in the second Kiryu is caught off guard, he manages to switch their positions, pinning both of Kiryu’s hands against the cement to prevent his retaliation. Their Marks glow relentlessly, and the power swirls as something menacing and volatile within; Yusei shoves that back too. He doesn’t want to give in to the things he wants to defeat the most in this world, because maybe if he can do it, Kiryu can, too.

Stardust’s card glimmers in the deck box on his hip, and her light bathes him in a power that he misses so terribly in the absence of Akakiryu. 

“I miss the Kiryu that I once knew! He’s still inside of you deep down—I _ know _ he is! You were an inspiring leader, you had empathy, you were ** _good!_ ** Stop giving into the lust for power and revenge and remember who you once were!”

Kiryu’s grin falters for just a moment, but he draws back up his iron defence before Yusei has the chance to push his point. “_ You _ murdered that side of me, Yusei. What you see is all that will ever be left.”

Yusei stills, as if the man had just run him through with a hot iron and he’s still waiting for the realization to kick in. 

It seems like minutes pass. The Marks fade. Yusei still says nothing as he rises to his feet. He offers a hand to help Kiryu up, but he doesn’t take it. 

Fudo turns without a word, disappearing back to the staircase.

He doesn’t leave the room to which he’s assigned for a week. He doesn’t eat. Doesn’t sleep.

The other Dark Signers gather again.

In the end, it doesn’t matter. The War approaches.

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to @setokaibaes for beta reading! And special thanks to @ifwegettherebysunset for helping me with ideas!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
